


Aftermath of the End

by WakeUpDreaming



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Charmspeaking, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Loss of Limbs, Manipulation, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Violence, loss of sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 06:33:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1888584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeUpDreaming/pseuds/WakeUpDreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The battle with Gaea is not where the demigods end. When Romans and Greeks clash, the aftermath is brutal, bloody, devastation, leaving the Greeks victorious and the Romans captive. Reyna speaks with Annabeth, and discovers just how broken Annabeth's become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath of the End

**Author's Note:**

> This is, without a doubt, the darkest thing I have ever written. Please heed the warnings and be aware that this presents almost every single character in their worst case scenario post-battle. Dark!Annabeth and Dark!Piper are the backbone of this fic.

Reyna finds herself thrown to her knees before Annabeth, who’s sitting in a messy little chair in front of her. It got an orange blanket draped against the back, and it makes it look like a horrible little throne.

It’s the first dirtless color Reyna’s seen in two days.

Piper sits at Annabeth’s feet like a little cat, and it’s almost like she’s gazing out at those in front of her like they’re a simple game given for her enjoyment.

“What do you want?” Reyna snarls. “You’ve treated us Romans like dirt enough. What the hell more do you want from us?”

Annabeth tilts her head, hardly enough to see Reyna, but there’s something frighteningly regal in the expression. Like she knows she can utter a single word and destroy Reyna limb from limb.

And with Clarisse La Rue, Annabeth’s token muscle, standing to Reyna’s side and keeping her from running, Reyna’s not sure that’s too far from the truth.

She feels her shoulder, crushed under Clarisse’s hand, explode with pain. “Please,” she gasps. “Let go.”

“Not a chance,” snorts Clarisse.

Reyna sighs, defeated.

It gets worse. Jason’s brought out by a camper named Butch, big and strong and glaring at the boy in front of him like he killed his king. It’s not too far from the truth.

“Jason Grace,” says Annabeth, voice dripping with venom. “How lovely to see you after your embarrassing display of faithlessness.”

“I didn’t –”

“You don’t speak,” she says. She turns to Piper, laying a hand on her shoulder, and gently turning Piper’s head in the direction of Jason. “She does.”

Piper stands slowly, walking carefully down the steps to a few feet in front of where Jason sits. “You want to kill yourself,” says Piper, charmspeak sweetening her words in a way that disgusts, repels Reyna. “Your guilt is such that you can’t stand looking in the mirror. You hate everything you are, you’re offended you survived and they didn’t.” A sneer twists and ruins Piper’s features as she stares Jason down. “You want to kill yourself, but you can’t. You’re too weak. You’re a coward who can’t do it.”

Reyna slumps where she’s held by Clarisse’s big arms. She’s expecting some response from Jason, some reaction to show that the charmspeak has worked.

It’s even more heartbreaking, somehow, when it doesn’t.

“What’s wrong?” demands Annabeth. “Why isn’t he doing anything?”

“Because he already feels that way,” says Reyna quietly. “He already wants to die. He’s already miserable and guilty. You don’t need to make him feel that way.” She forces her eyes to Piper’s. “He’s already there.”

Piper turns to her, and Reyna knows those powers are about to hit her like a brick. “You will not speak to us like that,” she demands. Reyna feels light, complacent. The little something in the back of her mind telling her to fight is just a blur in her brain, silly. Irrelevant. “You will be respectful. You will apologize to us.”

“I’m sorry,” says Reyna, but she freezes on the names. She refuses to use names.

Annabeth stares her down. “For what?” she says, voice clipped.

Reyna bites on her tongue. She tastes blood. It’s a shock enough to keep her mind stable, to keep her steady, to stay her own.

“No!” she shrieks, and in a moment of sheer desperation, twists, landing on her hands, and twists her legs around Clarisse’s neck, throwing her to the ground. She makes it halfway to the door before she’s thrown to the ground by excruciating pain in her leg. She makes a strangled little gasp and looks up to where Leo’s staring down at her expression pained and uncertain where he sits in his wheelchair. Reyna feels an inexplicable pang of pity as she remembers the moment it happened – a misguided sword, an awful mistake, a gut reaction in the wrong direction. Jason’s never forgiven himself. He probably never will.

She presses her hand to the wound and hisses. It’s worse with the pressure.

“Have we learned our lesson?” comes Piper’s high, ringing voice. It’s not affected. There’s no charmspeak.

She doesn’t expect Reyna to answer.

So she does.

“There’s nothing from you I want to learn,” Reyna spits out. “Let us walk away now, leave us alone, and maybe, just maybe, this can end on peaceful terms between the camps.”

From behind Piper, Annabeth stands. “There are no peaceful terms between the camps,” she shouts. “Your people,” she says the word like a poison, “invaded our land, killed our campers, killed – killed or injured the people I cared most about.” She pauses and steadies herself, her eyes on Reyna as she walks down the path to where Reyna’s kneeling on the ground. “Your soldiers are nothing but dirt,” she snarls, “a sham of a camp built on brutality and hatred. And maybe that’s what we’ve done wrong all these years. What violence we do now we learned from you.”

“That’s not true,” says Reyna. “I didn’t –”

“You led them here!” shouts Annabeth. “You in those stupid vans.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

Piper laughs, sharp and high and piercing. “My knife tells me many things,” she singsongs. “I saw you driving to destroy us and our camp.” She sighs. “Then we called you, and just after we had trusted you with Nico and Hedge…You turn your camp on us again.” Piper sighs even more dramatically, knowing how her words cut. “Really, Reyna,” she says quietly, “how could you?”

Reyna’s mouth opens, but no words come out. Piper knows how to destroy, how to hurt, how to harm, just with her words, and it’s paralyzing. Reyna swallows hard.

“Stop, Piper,” croaks Jason. “Please.”

“You do NOT get to speak to her,” shouts Annabeth, her glare going to Jason. “You betray her like that and leave her to – you have no right.”

Reyna knows this is a coping mechanism, they don’t know what they’re doing. They’ve been hurt, and they’ve lost everything they could imagine.

But this is too far. “It wasn’t his fault!” she groans. “You need to understand this, he didn’t –”

“He chose sides,” thunders Annabeth. “And obviously, it was the losing side.”

Reyna starts. “There shouldn’t have been sides,” she says quietly. “Annabeth, please –”

“Tell that to Piper,” she says. “He chose you over Piper. There was enough time to shield both of you if he grabbed her first, but he covered you.”

“You don’t know that –”

“I don’t?” Annabeth shouts. “Well better Piper than you, right?” she says, and for the first time all day, Reyna hears Annabeth’s voice crumple. “Better Piper’s eyes fall useless than you wait a split second longer for a cover. But he dove to warn you. Not her.”

Piper bites her lip, makes a sad little sound that hurts even Reyna.

“It’s okay,” Annabeth murmurs, her voice caring and kind in a way Reyna hadn’t thought possible now, “Piper, you’re safe now.”

“With you,” Piper murmurs. “Only with you.”

“See this?” Annabeth says, gesturing to Piper, up to Leo. “This is what happens when you launch an attack. People you love lose what they keep close to them.” She stares Reyna down, but Reyna refuses to look away from her eyes. “Ambrosia and nectar can only do so much.” Annabeth makes a horrible, choked little noise, and Piper feels out for Annabeth’s face, pulling her in to kiss her on the forehead.

“I know you miss Percy, and you’re hurting, Annabeth, but –”

“I’m the only one of the Greeks in the seven to come out unscathed!” she shouts. “The only one. You have no right to even act like you know what I’m going through.”

Reyna immediately regrets that one moment of reaching out. But she tries again. “I’m sorry I lost Hedge. I’m sorry Nico will never be the same again.” And, damn it, she’s crying, but she can’t stop. “I’m sorry I made mistakes, but what you’re doing won’t bring any of what we’ve lost back.”

“We?” screams Annabeth, but Piper speaks over her

“No,” Piper, interjects, “but it’ll sure make me feel a lot better.”

Reyna turns to her before she remembers that Piper will never make eye contact again. Annabeth catches the actions, and raises one knowing, angry eyebrow.

“Do I need to make Piper charmspeak you to never talk back again?” Annabeth asks. “Do I need to ask her to do that? Because I can tell she never wants anything to do with a Roman again, but if you won’t stop, I’ll have to.”

“You could choose to leave her alone,” says Jason gallantly, but he simply gets forced back to his knees for his troubles.

“I don’t want to hear him speak anymore,” says Piper, her voice unsteady and on the verge of emotion, “Butch, can you remove him? It – it feels wrong to have him here.”

Annabeth nods, an action Reyna’s suddenly sure Piper’s unaware of, and Butch carts her off. In the tiny moment, Reyna realizes that Piper doesn’t know that the power dynamic is so unbalanced. She thinks it’s equal.

Annabeth knows it isn’t. Annabeth has claimed rule, and Annabeth will relinquish it for no one, but Reyna would be a fool not to try something.

“Just try again,” says Reyna. “Destroy me, I don’t mind, just…give the two camps another chance.”

“Another chance is unnecessary,” says Annabeth, “and impossible. There is no reconnection possible. We could call this another Civil War, if you will.”

Reyna fights for something to say, but the futility hits her hard and fast as she sees the resilience and angry fight in Annabeth’s eyes.

The loss of Percy’s life, the loss of Nico’s sanity, the loss of Leo’s legs, the loss of Piper’s eyes. It took a toll on Annabeth that she may never come back from.

The Annabeth Reyna knew and cared for is gone.

This new Annabeth is a queen of rage.

It’s over for Reyna, any hope she’d had thrown to the dust, but she tries one last time, chancing a glance at Piper, who looks victorious and pleased as Annabeth strokes her hair. Piper’s leaning into it. It makes Reyna wonder if something other than just a loss of vision happened to Piper through this whole ordeal. The thought terrifies Reyna, mainly because she’ll never know, and the question could get her killed. “You feel just as guilty as we do,” says Reyna. “Look, Annabeth, it’s not your fault this happened.”

“No,” says Annabeth, authoritatively. “It’s yours.”


End file.
